


Knowing what the question is

by treewishes



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, University AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 11:57:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13053534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treewishes/pseuds/treewishes
Summary: Amanda dragged herself out of bed, grumbling that it was way too early for anyone to be mobile.  Really, why would anyone be here at 8 am on a Tuesday?





	Knowing what the question is

**Author's Note:**

  * For [renaissance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/renaissance/gifts).



Amanda dragged herself out of bed, grumbling that it was way too early for anyone to be mobile. 

She threw on leggings and a sweatshirt and trudged to the student lounge in Bergsberg Hall. Which was mostly empty, other than a couple frat boys passed out on the sofa in the corner and some dorks playing chess near the coffee machine. Really, why would anyone be here at 8 am on a Tuesday? And playing chess, seriously? She threw herself into one of the big leather chairs by the window and checked her phone. Where was Todd, anyway? 

She pulled out her textbook and stared at the cover. Was that bizarre graphic supposed to mean something? She tossed the book onto the side table. Amanda was pretty sure she was at the bottom of her class – well, other than that weird British guy who possibly didn’t even know what class he was in. She shook her head. Maybe she was math challenged, but at least she knew that she needed to pass this class. 

“Hey, Amanda,” Todd said, strolling in.

“Hi,” she said, dredging up a smile and hopping up to give him a hug. “Thanks so much for coming, I know you have lab this morning, but I really need some help here.”

He shrugged. “It’s no problem. You’ll get it, I have no doubt.” 

“Don’t be so sure. I think the only reason I’ll ever understand calculus is that you managed it at some point. You know you’re my hero.”

He glanced away. “Hey, I’m going to get some coffee. You want some?”

She shook her head. “No thanks, I’ll just be here trying to translate some of this alien language.” She laid her notebooks and papers on the table and checked her scribbled notes for the section she was supposed to understand before class this afternoon. It really did look like some alien had taken over her handwriting. She tried to imagine being able to understand it.

Nope, it was definitely still alien. 

She looked up when she realized Todd wasn’t coming back. He was chatting with the chess players, and – seriously? – was dragging one of them over here. It was a dude wearing a weird-ass yellow leather jacket. 

“Amanda, I want you to meet Dirk,” Todd said, waving his coffee at the dude. “This is Dirk who lives on my floor.”

Amanda stared at him. “Wait, what?” This was that Dirk guy that Todd went on and on about? Todd loved this guy. And, wow, jacket notwithstanding, he looked really familiar. “Hold on, are you really Dirk Gently?”

He gave her a coy look. “I really just so am,” he said, and she swore he batted his eyelashes.

She took a minute to make the connection, and then – oh right, that was where she knew him from! “Hey, you’re in my Calc class, 2 pm, right?”

His eyes opened wide. “Yes! Yes I am. I’m not really sure why, you understand.” He turned to Todd. “I don’t remember signing up for it, but there it was on my schedule.” 

Amanda sat back and crossed her arms. The guy who forgot what class he registered for was Todd’s friend Dirk. Of course he was. 

Dirk sat down on the table next to her books, and asked, “So tell me. What do you think of Professor Curlish? Not very pleasant, but she seems brilliant, wouldn’t you say?” 

“Brilliant isn’t the word I would use,” Amanda snorted. “Incoherent is a better one.” She also thought that Professor Curlish could use a spa day and some seriously deep hair conditioning. “At least she’s better than her TA.” 

“Oh, I know,” Dirk nodded, weirdly serious. “Mr. Priest is someone I would so much rather avoid.” He shuddered. “The last time he had office hours, it was a nightmare.”

“He’s the worst,” she said, which was a massive understatement. “It’s just my luck, though. I heard the TA for the morning section is much better.” She sighed. “Must be my bad juju.”

“Amanda, you don’t have bad juju –“ Todd said. 

“Thanks, Todd,” Her brother was, as always, supportive. She smiled up at him. Then Dirk jumped in, “Oh, do you mean quantum entanglement?”

“No, I—” Todd started, deterring Dirk not at all.

“No, that’s exactly it! You see,” Dirk said, jumping to his feet and whirling on them with the fervor of a social justice warrior, “when discrete quantum particles are connected they might be triggered to simulate a synchronicity that to the untrained eye — to the common eye — could seem like, as you say, juju.”

Amanda could only stare, fully reconsidering her assessment that Todd was any sort of decent judge of character. She really should have known when he joined the Mexican Funeral, what a bunch of thugs they turned out to be. She opened her mouth to say just how little she cared, and could we please get back to explaining what a function was, please, when Dirk barreled on.

“So if, say, a person, no one in particular, can start the particles around them spinning in a certain direction, then any connected particles start spinning sympathically.” Dirk pointed a finger right at Amanda. “And THEN — mind you, this is ALL theory, there’s no proof WHATsoever — when bad things happens to one person, related things could happen nearby.”

He sat down again. “Or as you might say, there could be bad juju,” he said, waving at the universe in general, “Or good juju. Juju all around.”

Todd looked mesmerized by Dirk and was actually asking a question about juju when the door to the lounge opened again and an extremely loud group of students barged in. It appeared they had failed to make it home after a monster party last night. Perhaps the one she herself had attended. They looked about as rough as she felt.

Instead of ignoring them like any normal person, Dirk shrieked and dove behind Todd. Dirk’s yellow plumage meant this wasn’t very successful.

Todd turned around and looked down. “What is up with you, Dirk?”

Dirk was crouching down near the window, glancing around and looking like he was considering jumping. “That’s the Rowdy 3,” he hissed.

“There are four of them,” Amanda pointed out.

“Yes, of course there are four of them! Don’t let them see me?”

Which meant one of them immediately saw Dirk. It was the big crazy looking guy, which really didn’t narrow things down by much. “Hey, look!” he shouted, “It’s that guy from Blackwing!”

“Blackwing?” Amanda asked, looking at Todd. “Blackwing Community College?”

They both looked at Dirk. He uncovered his face. “Yes, fine,” he admitted. “I’ve been taking classes there. Have you met some of the TA’s here? They are either totally unavailable or downright mean. I refer you to Mr. Assitent in Physics who will sell you fake and incorrect practice tests. For fun!”

The guys from Blackwing advanced on Dirk. Amanda could only watch, fascinated; they smelled like last week’s laundry and last night’s kegger. 

“Hey, Hugo,” a voice called from the corner. One of the frat boys had woken up and was elbowing the other. “Look at what the cat dragged in.”

The four guys who were crowding around Dirk turned like a herd of frightened meerkats. 

“Um,” the other fratboy yawned, sitting up. “Wait, Ken, is that who I think it is?”

The four rowdy boys made a break for the door, with the frat boys on their heels. Amanda could hear them shouting as they clumped down the stairs.

“Are they gone?” Dirk asked, uncovering his head.

 

The door banged open again, and Amanda was surprised to see Todd’s girlfriend Farah. Which made this whole thing feel suspiciously like a coffee date, and wasn’t that just fantastic. 

“Hey, guys,” Farah nodded to them. 

“Farah?” Dirk spun around. “Is that you?”

“Dirk?” Farah said, and this day was just getting more bizarre. 

“Yes, from fencing club!” Dirk said, lighting up like a drugstore Christmas tree. Then he stopped, looking from Amanda to Todd to Farah and back again. “Well, isn’t this a coincidence! I’m in fencing club with Farah, live next door to Todd, and I’m in your maths class, Amanda. Isn’t that the strangest thing? Didn’t I say that everything was connected?” 

“Does that mean you are also connected to that boat out there?” Farah asked, pointing out the window.

Amanda stood up to look and – 

“It’s a boat,” Todd said.

“More of a small yacht, I would say,” Dirk said, and Amanda kind of agreed.

“What’s a boat doing on the quad?” Amanda asked Farah, who was pulling up sofa cushions and opening and closing cabinet doors. In no time, she pulled a small box sprouting antennas from under a chair near the door.

“It’s actually a Pacific Islander tugboat, according to this,” she said, reading from the unit which was covered in dials and switches. “One fortieth scale.”

Todd cocked his head. “What is that? And how did you know that?” 

“It’s a remote controller for that boat out there,” she gestured. “After it bounced out of the pond, we looked at the trajectory and figured the controller had to be in this building. Taking into account the geometry and the signal strength. It’s just math.”

“And this happened just now?” Dirk asked.

Farah glanced at the boat. “Maybe half an hour ago?”

Dirk looked around. “Well, then it’s obvious.”

“Well, not to me,” Farah said, firmly. “I need to take this to campus security to get fingerprints and they’ll need to look at security footage to find out who was here in the last hour –“

“But we already know who was here, and,” he lowered his voice, “who was controlling the boat.”

“You do?” Todd asked.

“Well of course. I mean, we were just saying how everything is connected,” Dirk said, rolling his eyes.

“All right, then. Tell us,” Farah said, leaning back.

“Right. Well, it couldn’t have been the Rowdy 3 –“

“Four,” Amanda said, under her breath.

“— as they arrived here only 15 minutes ago and left quite suddenly. You might, therefore, think it was Mr. Adams and Mr. Friedkin, the gentlemen who were ‘apparently’ sleeping,” he gestured to the sofa in the corner, “and left with them, but that would also imply that they were capable of anything more than knuckle dragging and mouth breathing.”

“Which leaves,” he said dramatically, pointing to the chess board and his match partner, “Mona Wilder.”

“Me?” The girl stood up and answered in a baby doll voice. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I say this because Mona is a holistic actress, you see. She would only need to convince the wizards up in the EE lab to build this little gadget. Something she does on a regular basis, I would guess.”

He turned to Todd, “I suspect it has something to do with the homecoming game this weekend against the Montana Mariners.”

“A homecoming prank?” Farah sighed. 

At just that moment, two security guards slammed the door open and Amanda immediately dropped into her chair and tried to look stupid. Not much of a stretch these days, she admitted.

Without drama, though, Farah capably took charge, handing over the controller and Mona to the guards. Dirk and Todd were talking to them with lots of unnecessary hand gestures.

Amanda sighed. She was beginning to give up all hope for a passing Calc 101 grade. Dirk was getting all worked up over something else then, and she perked up a little when she remembered she wouldn’t have the absolute lowest grade in the class.

“Hey Farah,” Amanda said, “nice work there, but,” she nodded toward Todd clapping Dirk on the back, “I can see that I’ve lost any chance of help before my 2 pm Calc class, and I did get here at 8 am, which is not putting me in the best of moods.” She stood up and swung her bag around, almost hitting the other girl.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Amanda exclaimed. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, it’s no problem.” Farah cocked her head and looked down at the book still in Amanda’s hand. “Wait, Calc 101? You know I’m the TA for the 10 am section.”

“You… what? You’re the…” Amanda stared, dropping her bag with a thump.

“Sure,” Farah said, and then, “Wait, Todd didn’t tell you?”

“Um, no?” 

Farah shook her head. “Huh,” she said. “Hey, Todd?”

Todd left Dirk with the guards and came over to them. 

“I’m going to work with Amanda on her Calculus homework, so I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Sure,” he said, looking from her to Amanda and back. “I’ll just catch you later, right?” Todd glanced back at Dirk and gave Farah his #2 disappointed face, which Amanda knew didn’t bode well for his relationship with Farah and said far too much about his fascination with Dirk.

Farah shrugged, with a “whatever” look on her face, which sealed it for Amanda. 

“Hey,” Todd said, slinging an arm over Dirk’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s go get some coffee before my 9 o’clock. I think I’ve been dumped in favor of math tutoring.”

“I’d definitely say that, but of course, I would say any number of things.” He shrugged. “And now, I have a proposition for you…” and they were gone.

Amanda watched them go. If she had lost another math tutor because of that nut, he would have been entangled in a whole new way.

She sat down and patted the narrow slot next to her in the overstuffed chair. “Sit next to me?”

“Sure,” Farah said. She really had a brilliant smile.

\--


End file.
